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BlogTalk: A Loss on the Left

By Sarah Wheaton June 4, 2007 2:53 pmJune 4, 2007 2:53 pm

The lefty blogosphere is mourning the loss of one of its own, Steve Gilliard. The founder and full-time co-author of The News Blogdied on Saturday at age 41 following a series of heart and kidney problems.

The outpouring of grief for Mr. Gilliard reflects how “emotionally complicated” the blogosphere can be because “it binds us tightly to people we may never see in person,” writes Sara Robinson at Orcinus.

Mr. Gilliard’s blog was not necessarily the most widely read, but he was a blogger’s blogger who had the attention of some of the most influential on the scene, and he was also considered to be one of its most important black voices.

Markos Moulitsas Zuniga writes that Mr. Gilliard’s comments caught his eye during DailyKos’s infancy, and he ultimately invited the military history buff to become his first “guest blogger.”
“He didn’t waste time getting started, drawing on history of the region and the British occupation of Iraq in the late 1910s to set the stage for what the US would soon face in Iraq,” Mr. Zuniga eulogizes. “He was frighteningly prescient on Iraq, and it wasn’t the only topic he would consistently nail.”

Ms. Robinson did not see him as quite so consistent:

His blogging voice was brash and authoritative — just what you’d expect from a lifelong New Yorker. We gave him no end of [expletive] for the bold pronouncements and predictions he’d occasionally issue, which would often enough turn out to be dead wrong. But when he wrote about New York politics (he was merciless on Giuliani, and it’s one subject on which we will be poorer without him), he had a way of making even an expat on the opposite coast care about the local political oddities of the Big Apple. Reading Gilley on NYC was like reading Molly Ivins on Texas. You could only sit back, mute, at the gobstopping wonder of it all.

Several bloggers, including Mr. Zuniga and Firedoglake’s Jane Hamsher, remarked that Mr. Gilliard’s take-no-prisoners tone in his blogs belied his gentleness in person, a reminder that the often bombastic and shrill tones of the blogosphere are to some degree a construct.

Peter Daou, the internet director for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, has a roundup of tributes to Mr. Gilliard.

As one who knew Steve Gilliard well (he was the first writer hired for the now-defunct netslaves.com site and I edited what he wrote for us), I can vouch for his being a very nice fellow in person.

But Steve, typing at a keyboard, was a ferocious editorial force and he really did seem to enjoy “mixing it up,” both in Blog posts and in BBS settings, where “flame wars” are the norm.

I find it a bit troubling that Steve is now being pigeonholed as a “lefty” Blogger. Steve had a wide range of interests, including sports, PC hardware and software, the art and science of relationships, and he was also a first-rate financial analyst. Many of his opinions hardly accord with what most people would consider standard-issue “lefty” ideology.

But after 9/11/01, the bulk of Steve’s output was certainly directed toward issues larger in scope than Silicon Alley, technology, or workplace issues, and because he an early and outspoken critic of the current administration’s policies, I suppose it’s natural that he would now be associated with “lefty” politics.

But I don’t think Steve saw himself this way. As he wrote in his introductory article for Netslaves, he was “A Web Writer and Damn’ Proud of It” and I would say that Steve associated this label with the freedom, immediacy, and investigative potential of the World Wide Web as a publishing platform. He thought of himself primarily as a journalist, not as a partisan, and that’s an important distinction to make, whether or not you agree that his work was always neutral, or (heaven forbid) “Fair and Balanced.”

I have assembled a collection of Steve’s work for Netslaves.com on my own Internet History site, and you are welcome to inspect “the other side” of Steve Gilliard here:

I’ve been reading Steve every day since maybe his first few days. In an email exchange a couple of years ago I begged him to tell me over a beer someday why he wasn’t the most popular news/politics blog in the US. He agreed; someday we’d have that beer. Honestly, I’ve been looking forward to the moment ever since …and I’m not going to stop.

http://yanquimike.blogspot.com/2007/06/thanks-steve.html
His motto was “We Fight Back.” And he did every time. After more than 20 years of radical, intolerant conservative dominance of US national discourse and the consequent lies, Gilliard put his pen to the new medium of blogging and swore-off the old Liberal tendencies to allow Right-Wing hate, corruption, and destruction to go unanswered because such idiocies didn’t deserve a response.

He decided to hit back at least as hard… and at least blow for blow… every time the people that are destroying the old county tried to cram another lie, myth or distortion down our throats.

I fell into formation with him from that very moment. No more assuming that anyone with sense or reason would automatically recognize the obviousness of it all… that had been proved wrong over and over again.

And no going-on-the-defensive, either. That had been proved a trap. We would give as good as we got and better. No shot would go unanswered. We were smarter, better, loved our country and constitution more, and the false populism of the Reagan-Democrats phenomenon was ripe for us to explode. I loved him.

I believe that he influenced everyone. I could hear it, smell it, taste it, feel it, see it whenever anyone fought back. He never got the amount of credit that I believe he deserved… but the great ones never do in their time. That made me feel a little better. I’m not sure but I always had the feeling that that might have comforted him as well.

I hope that his love, Jen, will attempt a foundation or think-tank in his memory… he would often rail at that lack of any of those types of organizations on our side of the tracks. He needs… no, WE need something very alive to commemorate him.

I have been reading Steve since I first got into the IT industry in 1999. He was the first brother on the Internet that I honestly could feel that I had something in common with, and just trying to follow in his footsteps in my own way has made me a better person, and I’m sure that many of his readers would agree. Whether he was right or wrong about it, he at least had an educated opinion on it, and by God, he covered EVERYTHING: politics, soccer(!), cooking, etc., with equal amounts of zeal for every topic. I didn’t know what a 10-K was, or how badly the dot-coms were being run until his columns in Netslaves, and I didn’t realize that the left blogsphere was as large as it was until his NewsBlog. But he wasn’t merely a ‘lefty’ blogger. To say that would be to discount his memory and his writings. He was a writer whose talent for educating those who chose to listen was peerless. God bless you brother, and may you rest in peace.

Gilliard was a masterful exploiter of the Internet medium, but if he could be politically characterized at all, he was a “liberal”, not a “left” blogger, and, as Baldwin indicates, his interests was much broader, much more eclectic, than politics.

In fact, if he had lived 50 years ago, one could imagine Gilliard writing a column 3 or 4 times a week for a newspaper like the SF Chronicle, or one of the Chicago papers, with people talking about whatever he wrote that day at work, at lunch, at the department store avidly, because his social insight equalled, if not surpassed his political insight. He was reminiscent of the stable of diverse columnists, people like Brenda Payton and Bill Wong, that Robert Maynard assembled at the late, lamented Oakland Tribune of the 1970s and 1980s.

For some reason, although their styles were completely different, I can’t help thinking of Herb Caen when I think of Gilliard, another so-called “lefty” who was really a “liberal”, and entertained his readers by interweaving politics, social life and entertainment in a down to earth way.

Characterizing Gilliard as “lefty” blogger diminishes his legacy, especially his insistence upon confronting challenging aspects of race relations, something almost completely absent from the mainstream media, except when it wants to chastise particular people of color or condescendingly lecture them about acceptable social norms.

There is a “left” in America and the world that goes far beyond Gilliard, and it does both a disservice to treat him in such a reductionist way. It falsely stereotypes him and demeans his unique achievements, while perpetuating the myth that liberalism constitutes the end of the horizon of progressive opinion. He deserves better than that, as do the many “lefty” bloggers that it consigns to oblivion.

I never knew Steve. I wasn’t even one of the bloggers who could say exchanged a few e-mails with him. I think he linked to my blog once. But no other blogger wrote with the same passion and the versatility about so many topics. Whether it was rallying us all after the 2004 election, or telling Anna Benson to get the hell outta town, or explaining why Sean Bell’s family went to see Al Sharpton, or explaining why using white cheddar instead of yellow cheddar in a macaroni and cheese is against God and nature, Steve was a force of nature. I never knew him, but I miss his voice terribly — and I suspect I will for a long time.

I don’t think the “bombastic” tone of Steve or other blogs are a “construct”. Steve understood very early on – before the war started that thousands of people were going to die, that is was going to get ugly, that the administration was lying, lying, lying and worst of all the main stream media – very much including the Times – was part of the charade. If that is not a reason to be “bombastic” I don’t know what is. Steve knew what was coming – and back in ’30people called him crazy , paranoid, too much of a pessimist.

“Bush the Cowboy”, “Bush the Brush Clearer”, “Bush the Freedom Fighter”, “Bush the Man’s Man” “Bush, 9/11 Hero.” That right there are some constructs for you.

There is a lot in this country right now to be outraged about. Just because in his personal life he could be pleasant and gentle doesn’t make his written outrage any less valid.

I never met Steve Gilliard. I never exchanged e-mails with him. However, I never missed a day reading “The News Blog.” His writing showed the depth of his knowledge on so many subjects. There were days when I would finish reading and think, “I wish I’d written that.”

The blogosphere has lost an important–and underappreciated–voice. He will be greatly missed.

Until his passing, I never saw a clear photograph of Steve. I never directly corresponded with him (although I regularly posted comments at his blog). Had I ever passed him in the street I’d have never noticed him. But I knew more about his opinions, his likes and dislikes than my closest friends. From his passion for soccer jerseys, his taste in food or computers, and of course his political opinions, Steve not only revealed but provided the rationale for his likes and dislikes. And he did so voluminously, with 4-5 posts a day. I keep telling myself, “Steve’s going to really have a good post on this” before sadly remembering that there will be no more posts.

He was easily on par with the “Boss” era Mike Royko or Molly Ivins (Who I imagine welcomed him into the afterlife with a tall cold beer).

In addition, he cultivated a remarkable comments section with a crowd of regulars that tended to remain coherent and reasonable in even the more heated exchanges and made most other comment sections seem to be populated by kittens on meth.

I’ve been reading Steve’s blog for about three years and I am just devastated at his death. For me, a history jock, the best part of Steve’s writing was his explanation of current events in historical terms. Maybe others weren’t as interested in that part of Steve’s writing as I was – and I used to skip right over his food entries – but those entries, as well as his political ones are what kept his blog the first I checked in the morning and the last I checked before bedtime.

I wish Steve would have lived to see – hopefully, at least, this terrible administration, and the attendant problems, coming to an end. Steve’s voice was powerful, and I willl miss it.

By the way, I’ve been reading thecarpetbaggerreport.com. Steve Benen’s almost as good a writer and moderator as Steve Gilliard. But, no one will take SG’s place.

The News Blog was always my first, my most often, and -if I had to have only time for one blog to visit- my primary blog source on news. It was successful because the author was inquisitive, interesting, and engaging. He challenged his readers to think and they challenged him back in a very thoughtful and logical manner.

This was the environment that was facilitated by him. It was not a ‘drive-by’ type site. You stopped, you read awhile, and you came back to see how other people responded to the topic at hand. Steve read all of the comments and responded to them individually. He would even pull some out and make them separate posts. How many writers are humble enough to give other people space on their blog like that?

This is what I fear we might lose forever. None of the other blogs I go to replicate the type of community that existed on the News Blog. I hope for all of our sakes we are able to create something similar in the future. It isn’t going to be the same though.

And that is the most fundamental truth. Steve showed that one person prattling away at the keyboard can make a difference in people’s lives. He gave me hope for the future of our country, the promise of which he still so fervently believed even as others became cynical or pessimistic. His is a voice that can never be copied and his shoes can never be filled. We can only do what we can in our own way to fulfill our commitment to a brighter future.

Steve Gilliard was more than a gold-standard blogger; he deeply influenced and shaped the medium with his audacity, scrappiness, passion and succinct, compelling wordsmithing. His combined talents as a writer, editor and (too-rarely mentioned) scrupulous moderator of The News Blog set a standard to which few blogs can garner comparison.

When I saw the news posted on TPM on Sunday I cried out loud. And then I wimpered like a baby for someone I’ve never met.

Steve was so reliable. A real fighter. A real blood-boiler. One of the good guys. He could be funny as hell, too, couldn’t he?

He never ever moaned about his health. He never even mentioned it in passing. I had no idea and, from comments left on his blog when he went into hospital in February, I realized I wasn’t the only regular who had no idea.

What a smart guy. What an interesting read: Iraq, American history, the military, local and US politics, food, drink, music, relationships, soccer. That stupid soccer.

I’ll miss him dearly. I’d sign off here with his signature anti-Yankees rallying cry, but I know it would be blocked as obscene.

Steve Gilliard displayed the best qualities of a journalist: fiercely independent and uncompromising; continuously curious and well-read about his areas of expertise; respectful of and involved with his readers; unafraid (an understatement) to express an opinion, as long is was backed up by hard facts; and a solid writer with a distinctive voice. Reporters and editors, including the ones at this newspaper and especially those who would create truly engaging news content sites, would benefit from reading his honest work and examining the sort of on-line community he engendered.

Steve was also a quintessential New Yorker. A virtuous version of J.J. Hunsecker, he loved this dirty town — its politics, its food, its history, its people. And for hundreds of those people, it was Steve who formed a core of on-line support during 11 September, 2001 and the awful weeks that followed. When Steve wrote, the tough-but-kind spirit of NYC flowed across the Internet, allowing all of his readers — the residents, the ex-pats, the tourists, and those who had never even visited — to feel a part of our great city.

Finally, as others have noted, Steve was less a “lefty” than a liberal. Often impatient with the fantasism of the hard-left protest movement, and just as often a too forgiving of the Democratic Party’s willingness to dilute its core values, Steve (like many liberals) couldn’t and wouldn’t be pigeonholed. The term “Fighting Liberal” suited him fine and — given his commitment to the Bill of Rights and Enlightenment values; given his firm footing in the “reality-based community”; given his commitment to working the system we have effectively; and given his willingness (so rare in the media) to call out the liars and fantasists and confidence artists on their nonsense — the suit fit.

The community that Steve fostered attracted a group of like-minded writers — many of them talented, with their own unique styles. While his physical heart may have betrayed him, the heart of his philosophy and approach lives on in others. As Steve would say when others were dressing up in costumes and crowing about missions being at an end, this is not over.

FTFY, Cause Steve was one of the best, the world is a poorer place for his absence, as another reader who loved his insight into things I had no idea about I honestly thought he would put through.
It’s little consolation I know, but his soul will live on through his words.

History will show Steve to be one of the founding fathers of blogdom. Yes, he was brilliant and genuine, but he was also right there at the beginning.
If the ID# of his blogger acct isn’t 2 digits, it’s because he had an outlet at Netslaves which predated blogger by eons of internet time.

Calling presidential elections was not Steve’s forte but the man really knew what he was talking about whenever he wrote. One didn’t always agree with what his opinions where but it was a certainty that he had data to back them up.
The world is a poorer place with his passing and I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to enjoy his presence.

I still can’t believe this. I keep going back to thenewsblog.net hoping that it’s all a bad dream. I started reading Steve’s comments when he was posting on dailykos.com. I followed him over to his own blog and he was one of the several blogs that I read daily. Steve would explain what the news means. He’d obviously been up late writing 4 or 5 meaty posts and there was a lot of thought and knowledge behind them. His predictions were mostly right. His explanations of NY news were excellent. I’m a Yankee fan (sorry — too young to have been a Dodger or Giant fan and the baseball bug bit me before the arrival of the Mets). I’ll sure miss him.

Thank you for the entry, and the comments. As a regular lurker over at SG’s site for several years, I will miss him terribly.
One minor correction to comment #2 above (by yanquimike) – Steve and Jen were not romantically linked, but rather good friends, as Jen pointed out occasionally in the comments at TNB. (I always wondered how they became acquainted, since their interests/professions don’t seem to overlap much, at least to the extent I know them. Maybe a more attentive reader, or one of their mutual NYC pals, can fill in that information sometime.}

I knew Steve for nearly 8 years. Not in person, of course but through correspondence both within and outside of his blog.

He was a brilliant writer but he was most importanly he cared deeply. What people may have read as bombastic or hard driving — the core was his belief that truth needed to be said, whether it was about soccer, how much the Yankees blew, food, race, gender, transracial and transnational adoption, current events…and he was meticulous in expressing it all. He was the best, he was unique and he will be missed.

I first met Steve in college, at NYU. We both worked on the student newspaper together. We became fast friends due to our interest in history. I was a history major and he was a journalism major. We became close primarily I suppose because we were both black. We argued incessantly about race and history agreeing most of the time.

We stayed in touch long after college but in a somewhat decreasing manner over the last few years. I remember discussing with him this whole blogosphere thing back in 2000. How he told me that traditional journalism was dead and on and on. Then the whole Bush Iraq thing. We would talk for hours two history buffs proving the same point to ourselves and agreeing with it. Rendering discourse on the Ottoman empire, Comparing Pashsa’s fake calls to Jihad at the turn of the century to Saddaam’s now. Grivoly Princip’s anarchists to Al-Qaeda, and on and on through the century both coming to the conclusion that this is simply the continuation American/European hegemony which can be drawn like a straight line to Woodrow Wilson and a slightly less straight line to England’s view of the Universe (“which ‘we’ have adopted”. I will miss him greatly.

Finally I watched his health decline over the past few years and it saddened me greatly. I always wanted to work with him. I always dreamed of starting a newspaper or mag with him but he always reminded me that print media was dead. I’m not in the blogosphere and I rarely read his news blog, I always preferred to get it straight. Our last and continuing argument alas was over race. He was from New York and I am from Louisiana. He is one of the few black people who could both see and understand the perilous nature of black people in this country. We talked of it often but we never agreed on its remedy. Not completely anyway.

The discourse on that ‘remedy’ was always present to us, going all the way back to our college newspaper days. We argued (never bitterly) over how to respond to, white folk nonsense. His response and mine we always different. After all he was from NY and I am from Louisiana.

I know how much the blogosphere meant to him and the people who he worked with. I want to thank all of you especially Jen whom I have never met, talked to only once (I think) and never emailed. I know you helped him a lot and Steve was right where he belonged amongst you bloggers. He really loved it.

I’ve always been a lurker on Steve’s site and may have commented just once (I was extolling the virtues of Linux when he had a tech posting on operating systems).

However, I loved visiting his site every day, all the way back from the time when he was Markos’ first guest blogger over at Daily Kos (he started his own site right after that). As so many others have said here, his knowledge in a wide range of topics was excellent, especially his postings on Military History, New York City politics and questions of race. While I enjoyed the food articles, it was his postings on politics and current news that were, I felt, his major strong point.

I learned so much by reading his stuff every day (and would check several times a day).

Also, as many have mentioned, Steve was absolutely hush-hush about any health problems he had.

So many of us had truly, truly no idea how serious the health problems were.

To Steve, you will be greatly missed. I never met you in person in this life, but you touched me deeply. May you Rest In Peace.

Jen of the News Blog here. I want to say thank you to all, and thank you to the NYT for running his obit. I will carry the family’s official obit on thenewsblog.net as soon as it is sent to me, and for the time being, all of Gilly’s past works (or most of them, minus one month) can be found at stevegilliard.blogspot.com

I will try to post more later, but yes, we were never a couple, but Gilly was one of my very best friends in NYC. I will go to my own grave remembering him.

I hope Steve, were he still around to see this, would be pleased at the eloquence displayed here in response to his passing. I know I am–there is very little that I could add.

A very reductionist take on Steve would be to employ that old chestnut, “He did not suffer fools gladly.” For those who believe, like I do, that the last several decades in America have been one long, disastrous exercise in “suffering fools gladly”, voices like Steve Gilliard’s have represented the best of our hopes that this tragic period in our history might eventually be put to rest.

RIP, Steve. And best wishes in your sorrow to Jen and the Gilliard family.

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